User talk:Ralph Hancock
Message for Ralph Hancock: can you please direct me to Little Owl tree near Henry Moore statue. (Davidjeffreys (talk) Message for Ralph Hancock: 10 - 15 red crested pochard Long Water this a.m, also many blackbirds I would suspect visitors rather than resident. Regards, David Jeffreys (Davidjeffreys (talk) 10:10, October 19, 2014 (UTC)) 11.10 am 19 Oct 2014 Welcome Hi, welcome to London Bird Club Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the File:Uglymug2.jpg page. Please leave a message on my talk page if I can help with anything! -- Andrewself (Talk) 19:30, October 12, 2012 Hi Ralph, On Tuesday 9th October just before going dark I saw a Long-tailed Duck at the Long Pond Kensington Gardens. It came up to 6metres close and was unmistakbly this species. I have reported it and the bird recorder went down the next day but they didn't see it. Pity I wasn't carrying my camera so I didn't manage to get any photo or video evidence of it. I was told that it could be a wild one even though it came quite close. Just thought I'd let you know. Cheers, Michael Mac Hi Ralph, I have enjoyed reading your birding posts. Thanks for your efforts. I will be in London mid-June, staying near the Kensington High Street Station. My tentative plans are to bird the park on June 12th. Can you reccommend any particular areas or paths I should bird? What are the best times to avoid the crowds? Dave Flaming Portland, Oregon 02:02, May 27, 2014 (UTC) Ralph, I have enjoyed your Hyde Park/Kensington Gardens Blog since I found it a little over a week ago. I will be in London for a week at end of July and plan to bird in Hyde Park some of the mornings. Of particular interest to me are the Little and Tawny Owls which I have never seen. Any advise you could give me would be appreciated. Thank you, Jerry Golub, Roseland, nj Jerrygolub@msn.com 18:59, July 2, 2014 (UTC) Apologies for not having paid attention to this page -- it never occurred to me that people would leave private messages to me on it. The Tawny Owls have become almost unfindable now, as the family is ranging over a wide area. The best hope when you are in Kensington Gardens is to find someone with the telltale binoculars or camera with a long lens, and ask them if there is any recent news. To find the Little Owls' tree, go to the leaf yard, which is the fenced enclosure with a shrubbery around its edge that has the Peter Pan statue on its lake front. Go to the southeast corner of this enclosure (in other words, walk from Peter Pan towards the bridge until you get to the corner). Right at this corner you will see an old, battered sweet chestnut tree. From here, look for the next sweet chestnut, a few yards away. From that, look to the next sweet chestnut up the hill. It has a lot of brambles around its base. This is the Little Owls' nest tree, and the male owl likes to sit on a branch at the far right side of the tree from where you are looking. Again, you are quite likely to meet someone who will show you how to find this small and well camouflaged bird. Ralph Hancock not-quite-a-buzzard Dear Ralph, I was at the tawny owl tree on Sunday within what must have been minutes of your visit. No sign of an owl, annoyingly, but there was a starling at the top of the tree mimicking buzzard cries*. I've heard buzzards a lot (S. Wales, Chilterns, Outer Hebrides - where i was mobbed by a nesting pair, on Barra), so no uncertainty about the sonic idnet - and, indeed, it isn't the first time I've heard a starling doing that. A nifty way of getting yourself some social space, I'd think. (*My mum used to live opposite a music school, and there was a blackbird whose song had incorporated some snippets from the Beethoven 4th piano concerto...) I still haven't seen that scaup! 11:33, February 9, 2015 (UTC)Harry Gilonis Ralph We met today and you helped me to locate the little owls. I showed you a photo of a duck taken between the Lido and the bridge. Having studied Collins I am fairly sure it is a hybrid female Scaup/Tufted Duck. I am attaching a copy of one of the photos. Keep up the great work. Richard Atwell Message for Ralph Hancock - I live very close to Hyde Park and didn't realise (until I just saw your blog) that there are little owls in the park. Could you give me more details on the precise location of their roosting tree? Also, I cycle through the park and have heared a tawny owl twice in the last couple of weeks. Thanks, Lucy. 21:21, November 5, 2015 (UTC) Message for Ralph Hancock - I live very close to Hyde Park and didn't realise (until I just saw your blog) that there are little owls in the park. Could you give me more details on the precise location of their roosting tree? Also, I cycle through the park and have heared a tawny owl twice in the last couple of weeks. Thanks, Lucy. 21:25, November 5, 2015 (UTC)